While I understand the last day of school is not a regular day of instruction, I was disappointed to learn that the PE teacher had her students use their phones for entertainment for her period of time.
For students in middle school especially 6th graders, it is all about finding out more about who are you at 11 or 12 years of age and how do you fit in?
Why am I writing? Not every 6th grader has a smart phone, and that decision by the teacher was a good way to make those feel left out and different. I realize the day was shortened due to early release. I think in PE there could have been a better use of time.
What’s done is done but I do think we need to be careful not to create any more differences between students then there already are.

In the suburb of Walnut Creek, California it is estimated 15,000 showed up, much to the surprise of the organizers who were hoping for 400! A big thank you to the Walnut Creek PD who helped close streets for the march to proceed! I went with friends and we took our elementary school aged children it is a day we will not forget! What a day of coming together to show we will not take this sitting down! #wearetheresistance#womensmarch#togetherwewill

After soccer games, after taking down all the Halloween decorations, I made what I thought was a simple request to my daughters. Please go clean up your rooms.

You would have thought from the feet stomping and screeching that I asked more of each of them. They shrilled we will not clean up! You are the meanest mom! Why do we have to every Saturday! I don’t care if you can’t walk in my room! My friends do t get asked this!
Wow! This changed the tune of what had been a fairly harmonious day. Now mind you when we ask for them to clean up we give them hints on how to:

Pick up your dirty clothes

Pair your shoes and put them away

Put last weeks clean clothes away

I didn’t ask them to scrub or bleach or dust or vacuum. Just to pick up just to put away.

Well all the rest of the afternoon was now filled with grumbles of “I’m not doing it” and so we took away movie night, then we looked at other consequences but didn’t know how hard to come down on all this behavior.

Then just before dinner they asked for me to come in and see their rooms AND sometime in the quiet they did in fact clean up their rooms.

Now only if they had done it without all the screaming and screeching and stomping 😝

Now that I’ve been taking care of myself I still hesitate, but then I see this, me and them! And in me I see results of my healthy living over this year! I took back my life this year and in a slow and steady way.

I am proud of this picture! and hey look at my arms!

I started this year ready to take control. I found a plan – the Arbonne Healthy Living Cleanse that I began in earnest in February. My husband and kids came along for the ride as the family meals changed. I had recipes for clean eating that were gluten-free and soy-free. I modified my plate as necessary but was cooking for all of us as a whole. After losing about 20 pounds over the course of 40 days I clicked into maintenance and added back a meal in my days.

Since changing the way I eat I feel better and look better. Don’t get me wrong there are still cheat days or maybe weeks but for the most part I’m on this clean eating way of life.

From there I added strength training via a boot camp that I started in May 1x week and in the summer kicked it up to 2x a week.
The support of the online group with Arbonne really helped. I found myself thinking I need to share these experiences and am now an Arbonne Independent Consultant.

I’ve gone on to use many other skincare and hair care products while still eating with Arbonne Healthy Living in mind.

We are near the end of this calendar year but I am continuing on this journey about me!

Our older daughter has been following the presidential election all the way back to the primaries and the many candidates who threw their hat into the ring for the 2016 election.

She has her own chromebook (with limited access to all on the internet) and with that has been able to follow the platforms, candidates, who’s in and who’s out. Reading scholastic news and more student news. Through this last year she has formed her own opinion. This has brought about many discussions between us and what and why each of us feels that way about someone or not. The family dinner table discussions have changed from everyday discussions to what’s going on in politics.

For the California primary I pulled her from school at lunch to accompany me to cast my vote. We entered the polling place and she seemed enthralled.

She has formed her own opinion now that we are down to the two presidential candidates. We have had many discussions about who, what, where, when and why hoping to filter some of the ugly but not filtering too much. We have tried not to promote first female president as the only reason to support this candidate. We have talked about experience and knowledge vs gender.

Then one night during a bout of my own insomnia I came across a post that Hillary Clinton was going to be at a public event in San Francisco.

It was an awe-inspiring event to be in the room with strong females. Senator Barbara Boxer, Senator Diane Feinstein and of course Hillary Clinton. I see this day was as a way for my daughter to see the powerful positions women can attain in the world here in our own country.

I sit here two days after Halloween across from our 10 year old daughter. She thanks us for her switch witch gifts. Both her sister and I remind her that the switch witch left them, not us, then she winks. She winks. Have we reached the age that all things magical have hit a wall of reality? I dare not ask about her wink especially in front of her younger sister. Do I want the magic gone, definitely not!

My husband and I have maintained the magic for quite a few holidays and days in our family. Around the age of 3 we added the birthday balloon fairy as a way to keep our then 3 year old in her big girl bed all night most especially on her birthday eve. This tradition continues for both she and her sister and when we moved a few years ago around our older daughter’s birthday the fairy stepped it up and not only left balloons but covered her door with hanging streamers!

The tooth fairy has wobbled in and out of reality this year with our 10 year old. Thankfully she doesn’t say too much in front of her younger sister.

The elf on the shelf has been a major hit in our home since his arrival 5 years ago. The enthusiasm every morning starting on Black Friday to find him in and around our house in different activities still runs high. But will it be this year?

Santa, now that’s one I hope the magic continues. A tradition that I grew up with having unwrapped Santa gifts come on Christmas Eve while our girls sleep is one I was thrilled to pass on. But I wonder with the question of the switch witch will this year be different?

When your older child saw through the magic and into reality how did you handle this grown up change?

AND yes I’ve joined up on #BlogHer to write for the month of November as part of #NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I’ve participated in years past with my previous blog What Makes a Real Family, and decided a good way to get back into the swing of writing would be this event in November.

I do have stuff going on that will be fun to write about so keep posted as I begin my 30 days of posting!